Arsenal sign some Croatian guy to replace Henry (video)

Excuse me for never hearing about him, but Arsenal have just signed a player named Eduardo da Silva from Dinamo Zagreb. Indications are he’s a decent player and now I do recall he gave England fits when they played Croatia in a friendly a while back but beyond that I am left wondering just how exactly a Croatian ended up with the name da Silva.

To start, he finished the Croatian season with 34 goals in 32 appearances, an impressive tally in any league. He’s signed a four year contract for the Gunners and the fee is rumored to be in the 5m pound range. In total he scored 73 goals in 100 games before leaving the club.

The new Arsenal signing was born in Rio de Janeiro, so to answer the name mystery, that’s it: he’s born Brazilian but has a Croatian nationality. Da Silva moved to Croatia in 1998 at age 15 where he joined Dinamo. He was loaned out for a pair of seasons back to Brazil. After returning to Croatia, he made a slow climb into the squad until the 2004 season where he became a regular and was named the Croatian league’s player of the year. He also won the honor in 2006.

It looks like maybe Arsene Wenger has pulled another player out of his hat. Nobody saw this one coming; personally, I thought Arsenal would sign Obafemi Martins. I must admit, it does look a bit odd to replace a player of Theirry Henry’s stature with a player we’ve never heard of, but sometimes the lack of expectations will lower the pressure on a new player at a new club. With low expectations, we could all be surprised. Still, like many of you, I was expecting a big name.

So what did you sign? Looks like a goal poacher to me. There seems to be a hint of a natural eye for goal and he appears rather fearless. It looks like a response to Arsenal’s lack of ability to finish last season. Here is a video of your new player: